, was then,
in all probability, directly connected with the Red Sea. The length
of this canal, according to Pliny, was sixty-two miles, or about
fifty-seven English miles. This length, allowing for the sinuosity of
the valley traversed, agrees with the distance between the site of old
Bubastis and the present head of the Bitter Lakes. The length given
by Herodotus of more than one thousand stadia (114 miles) must be
understood to include the whole distance between the two seas, both by
the Nile and by the canal. Herodotus relates that it cost the lives of
120,000 men to cut the canal. He says that the undertaking was abandoned
because of a warning from an oracle that the barbarians alone, meaning
the Persians, would benefit by the success of the enterprise.

[Illustration: 251.jpg HIEROGLYPHIC RECORD OF AN ANCIENT CANAL]

The true reason for relinquishing the plan probably was that the
Egyptians believed the Red Sea to have been higher in altitude than the
Nile. They feared that if the canal were opened between the Nile and
the Red Sea the salt water would flow in and make the waters of the Nile
brackish. This explanation would indicate a lack of knowledge of locks
and sluices on the part of the Egyptians.

The work of Necho was continued by Darius, the son of Hystaspes (520
B.C.). The natural channel of communication between the Heroopolite
Gulf and the Red Sea had begun to fill up with silt even in the time of
Necho, and a hundred years later, in the time of Darius, was completely
blocked, so that it had to be entirely cleaned out to render it
navigable. The traces of this canal can still be plainly seen in the
neighbourhood of Shaluf, near the south end of the Bitter Lakes. The
present fresh-water canal was also made to follow its course for some
distance between that point and Suez. Persian monuments have been found
by Lepsius in the neighbourhood, commemorating the work of Darius. On
one of these the name of Darius is written in the Persian cuneiform
characters, and on a cartouche in the Egyptian form. Until this date it
therefore appears that ships sailed up the Pelusiac branch of the Nile
to Bubastis, and thence along the canal to Heroopolis, where the cargoes
were transhipped to the Red Sea. This inconvenient transfer of cargoes
was remedied by the next Egyptian sovereign, who bestowed much care on
the water connection between the two seas.

Ptolemy Philadelphus (285 B.C.), in addition to cleaning out and
th